Red drops of Sudd river coursing through dirt
give birth to the noble Zarafa, Zarafa of no mother
no mother, for the before-mother is cleaned off by hyena
talus like white thorn embedded into bedouin hand who
covered in sweat, covered in blood, in piss, in mud
burns into memory the simoom of the east which flies north
past Bahr-el-Zeraf, past Bahr-al-Jabal, past
Sobek’s growls at the merchant and moneylender
Taueret’s cries at the mother-murderer and child-taker
Wedjat’s hums as she is left blind by the first of all Pashas
who takes the left eye and maims Al-Mamlaka deeply
who takes the right eye and abandons Zarafa to the winds
the whims of the men of rosy cheeks and red garbs
red like red thorn, like the once-mother, now emptied
meat cubes of two inch by two inch, dried and salted
sinew of glue and gum and metallic rod and basalt
talus to tibia to femur to pelvis to coccyx
five-fingered vultures turn filial love into centerpiece
putrid cadaver fits with the arthurian armor, the baroque fireplace
peony fits with twisted forelegs, sedge with broken necks
O pitiful Zarafa, who will ever comfort you, who will pity you?
Tall and majestic Zarafa, knee bent towards God the Father
silent sacrifice, howling stigmata of the eleven feet stallion
bone flute and bagpipes tuned to winds that do not exist
tongue made for tasting woven golden pearls of the Old World
Old because the New has replaced it, glass and pyrite,
georgian expressions of power and brutality
carved on mahogany study desks, powered by seal-fat lantern
grown into corpse peonies and bone marguerite-roses
screaming Senegalese sophoras and camphor trees,
Javanese perdition with bitter hints and frugal aromas,
toxic to the first stomach, nocive to the second and third
ecstasy on the fourth, pain turned to pleasure, old Protestant values
turned inside out, drowned in formalin, paraded through Paris,
through the gray London skies, past the cold Belfast valleys,
supported by men who supported men who supported men
drunk on Indian amrita, head high by the power of dead Gods,
framed and cordoned neck so that the step would not hurt as much
past shattered vertebrae, past failing lungs, past broken heart
past all, the Zarafa would live on majestueusement
O noble Zarafa, who will ever truly see you, who will praise you?
But the rivers dry, and the simoom subsides, and the Pasha falls and dies
even frame of mahogany and iron bends and snaps against tenacious time
drop by drop the red Sudd bores into sandstone, reclaimed gift of Nile
Abgal tires of waiting, waxes his moustache, dons his great lance
and strikes into the heart of the palm, seventeen inches of desolation
mind and heart divided by tumors, reunited through scoliosis
porphyried vessels pumping duckweed and tigerfish roe into tired ventricles
lungfish eating the unburnt fat, hyacinth seeds latched onto undigested barley
that grows and bloats and punctures the stomach, like bedouin hands
diving into the Nile of the before-mother’s insides, finding gold and silver
sold to slave owners living in clean-street deserts, eternal cloudless skies
that peer into Zarafa, O great Zarafa, O noble Zarafa
condemned to a life standing in pain, Zarafa falls to her knees and rests
rests the heart atop the scale, against the feather, above Ammit
yet jackal head condemns not, but embraces, teary eyes, shaking hands
for the daughter who had been taken has returned
and the meat is cut into cubes, and the sinew becomes glue and steel
and the bone joins bone, and the body is made to suffer eternal solitude
yet the soul, the soul returns to the before-mother
to the land-mother, the forever-mother, the forgiven mother
O joyous Zarafa, amid weeps, who will ever celebrate you?